From Day One

•My Explanation•

From day one I was a 4 year old boy in a girl's body. I didn't know it but my mother did. She could see it in how I acted, in everything I did, said—all of it.

The earliest I could remember was when I was four years old, I was at my great grandmothers house—gods above, rest her soul—and I was being babysat. I pointed down the basement stairs and asked who the man at the bottom was.

This concerned my grandmother because of course, there was no one there. The same night, I woke up crying from a nightmare where the big man stole my voice and I was afraid to use my voice for two years. I fell into what I guess is NOW called selective mutism. I was afraid of my voice, that it would hurt people, so I never used it.

My family had no idea what was wrong, but they let it all go. They lived with a wordless 4 year out, cause kids were better seen than heard, to my father.

At 6 years old, the first words I ever spoke since 4 years had passed, was me screaming and crying to my father not to stab my mother in the kitchen, at the stove. When I spoke up, instead of being glad, my father turned around, marched up to me and grabbed me by my hair, slamming me to the wall and putting the steak knife to my face next, daring me to speak up again. When I cried, he slapped me and told me I was worthless.

My father was a man who called himself a family man, but he was an abused drug user that let strippers into the house when my mother was at work and they did lines of cocaine while I sat at the table, colouring.

At a young age, I was taught to keep my thoughts to myself. To NEVER speak my mind. I was oppressed up to the very day that Child Services came and took my brother and I away.

Not many kids remember the day they're taken from their parents but I remember every detail. Etched into my head is the look of disgust in his eyes as my 5 year old autistic brother cries next to me in the back of a van, both of us crying for our mother to come home in time but she didn't. They took us away from everything we were familiar with, which sure, was a good thing at the time, but it got worse.

I was placed in a separate home from my brother. I saw him once every three weeks and when I did, he never spoke. My brother and I were silenced at a young age, taught that our opinions didn't matter because we were just children.

I was put in a home with lovely foster parents, Clair and Roger.
To this day, I remember how much they treated me like family, like I belonged.
Did you know that my child services worker found out I was happier in the new home, so she moved me to live with my abusive aunt—on my father's side?

At about 9 years old, I was taught that being a kid was not okay. If I was excited to eat dinner that night and rushed to the table but forgot to wash my hands, my aunt would refuse to feed me, and she would put me in my room, and cut the power, lock the door, all of it. I was taught that having good emotions in a bad situation was wrong. I was taught that being miserable was the only thing I deserved.

My mother got me a present for my 10th birthday—a glass angel with my January birthstone in it, and my aunt grabbed it, and she shattered it, saying that false hope was stupid and that my mother would NEVER get me back. That birthday, my aunt wanted to throw some party that I didn't want but SHE wanted it, so I called up my fathers mother, and begged her to come get me. She got custody of both my brother, and I, in a week. I lived better there, my brother was out on medication that prompted his speech, and he began talking at 9 years old.

A year later, my mother won the battle, and she got Alec and I back. Without wasting any time, my mother got pregnant with a third child that she couldn't take care of properly, and his name was Brandon. She got a lot of help from her mother, raising Brandon. It was one hell of a struggle.

To sum it up, my family wasn't ready to have another mouth to feed. My mother cracked under the pressure and turned back to heavy drugs. You know what's worse? I understood.

When stress builds and builds, what else can you turn to? What else numbs you to the point that it doesn't hurt anymore? Family? No. Turning to friends doesn't make it go away, but drugs worked for her. It was terrible enough to tear us apart, but it worked for her. That was when I started minding my own business. My mother needed her space and her coping habits, and I just wanted to stay with my mom. I wanted to feel safe with my mother.